“Ahold enters major IT outsourcing initiatives”

Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 14 November 2005

Ahold today announced it has signed several major IT outsourcing agreements. Ahold signed a five-year contract for global information technology (IT) enterprise outsourcing with EDS, including applications maintenance services in the U.S. The company also signed a five-year applications maintenance agreement with Atos Origin, covering the Albert Heijn Arena, and a five-year contract with NCR for in-store IT-support in the Albert Heijn Arena. The total value of the contracts is approximately EUR 467 million.

Ahold has agreed to purchase from EDS, on a flexible basis, global IT infrastructure services, and applications management services for its two retail arenas in the United States, Stop & Shop/Giant-Landover and Giant-Carlisle/Tops. Atos Origin will expand its existing applications management services to the Albert Heijn Arena.

This strategy will provide Ahold with the ability to respond to market opportunities efficiently and accelerate its business/IT innovations. Approximately 450 Ahold employees located in the United States and in the Netherlands will transition to EDS.

This development will support Ahold's “Road to Recovery” strategic objectives to re-engineer its food retail business and reduce overall IT costs by streamlining the company's infrastructure. “Our competitive markets and strategic goals require us to focus our attention and resources on our core food retail business,” said Anders Moberg, Ahold President and CEO, after signing the contracts today.

“EDS worked with us to develop a global solution for our current geographic areas. The EDS team has demonstrated a commitment to a global integrated service delivery that will help us execute our business strategy. Expanding the scope of our current services with Atos Origin and NCR will also enable us to make our information technology more effective in the Netherlands.”

As part of the agreement, EDS will assume responsibility for maintaining Ahold's global IT infrastructure, which will include hosting its mainframe and midrange servers and providing local-area network and voice network support. The EDS agreement also consolidates Ahold's IT helpdesk support. EDS will manage the company's computing workplace of more than 9,600 desktop and laptops, printers and e-mail clients and provide IT helpdesk support for more than 10,000 users. Ahold expects an aggregate cost savings of approximately EUR 166 million in the coming 5 years as a result of streamlining its IT infrastructure. The calculation of these cost savings includes transition costs that will almost completely be incurred in 2006.

About Atos OriginAtos Origin is an international information technology services company. Its business is turning client vision into results through the application of consulting, systems integration and managed operations. The company's annual revenues are more than EUR 5 billion and it employs over 46,000 people in 40 countries. Atos Origin is the Worldwide Information Technology Partner for the Olympic Games and has a client base of international blue-chip companies across all sectors. Atos Origin is quoted on the Paris Eurolist Market and trades as Atos Origin, AtosEuronext Market Solutions, Atos Worldline and Atos Consulting.

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